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Sunday, July 26, 2015

Did Anthony Geary's Criticism Cause 'GH' Head Writer Ron Carlivati to Be Fired?

It's interesting how in the land of daytime television, there is often a lot more drama going on behind the scenes than there is actually playing out on camera. Anthony Geary recently left the role of Luke Spencer on General Hospital for good, after spending a few decades with the ABC soap. Never one to mince words, Geary has been quite critical of the recent writing on the soap and now that he is gone it has been confirmed that the show's head writer, Ron Carlivati has also been let go. Is it a coincidence? Probably not.

What's a bit ironic is the fact that not so long ago Carlivati was sitting pretty at the network. He was promoted to head writer status at about the same time that ABC's other two soaps, All My Children and One Life to Live had been cancelled and it was feared that GH was looking at a similar fate. Instead, Carlivati managed not only to prevent it from meeting with sudden daytime death, but he also garnered critical acclaim and helped GH to post major ratings.

So what went wrong? Well, some fans haven't loved Carlivati's use of characters and far-fetched plot lines ("Fluke", anyone?) but every head writer is going to face some degree of backlash. So is it Geary's criticism that helped the network to issue Carlivati a pink slip? In his exit interview from GH he ripped into the writing team pretty viciously saying,

"I get scripts where I'm literally told where to take a deep breath and what line to cry on and when to turn my body. Sometimes the writer's stage directions are longer than the scenes themselves," Geary told TV Insider, with deliberate care made not to mention Carlivati by name. "The great playwrights don't do that... If you must write this way, then go write a novel. In a novel, the author tells the readers everything a character is thinking and feeling and doing. But not in theater or film or TV. No, that's just weak writing."
Do you think that these public comments made GH reevaluate things? What are your thoughts on Carlivati's exit? Is it time for the soap to go in another direction? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!